There’s no way that this hat is the hat. Maverick’s hat from when he was a teenager.
“You’re reading too much into it, Q. It’s just a black hat. You just think that because all he ever wears, regardless of the time of year, is a solid black Stetson.” My voice is just as weak as my argument.
And she knows it, judging by the smirk on her beautiful face. “Then turn it over, why don’t ya?”
“No.”
“Turn it over, Leigh.”
“Leave it, Quinn.”
“If you’re so sure it’s just a black hat, then what’s the big deal? Prove me wrong.”
“I don’t need to prove you wrong, but while you’re here, why don’t you take it home with you and give it to your brother. He left it at the PieHole earlier when he came by for some coffee. Like I said, reading too much into nothing, Q.”
“Fine,” she snaps. “If you won’t check, then I will.”
I have to will myself not to react, but it’s so damn hard. Especially when I feel the overwhelming need to slap her hand away when her fingertips are just a breath away from the felt.
Do not react, Leighton.
Don’t you dare.
“Mav would kick your ass if he knew that you put it down like this. Don’t you know the old superstition that if you place the hat opening down, all the good luck that has been collected will fall out?”
“That doesn’t even make sense, Q.”
“Doesn’t have to make sense, it’s just the cowboy way. Never, ever, rest a cowboy’s hat with the opening down. You place it with the opening facing the sky so that it can continue to ‘catch luck’ . . . and while I’m at it, don’t ever put it on your bed.”
I frown at her, for a second forgetting what she was even doing. “You’ve been spending too much time with your ranch hands.”
“Seriously, Leighton, you would think that you weren’t even born and raised in Texas. Everyone knows this stuff.”
“If you say so.”
She lifts the hat, her gentle hold easing some of my anxiety over her just touching it, which is absolutely ludicrous. I hold my breath, looking away from her face and out into the dark front pasture between my house and the road down the long drive. The moon hides behind the clouds, casting nothing but different shades of darkness, and not allowing me anything to focus on.
Quinn makes a noise but doesn’t speak. I refuse to look at her, but I feel her walk farther down the porch to where I have another table. I hear the soft connection of the hat against the wood, inwardly cringing and fighting the urge to put a towel under it.
“You never really thought that whole infinity symbol thing through, did you?” Her voice rings out in the darkness.
My eyes shut.
My throat closes.
Her meaning clear.
“I mean it’s an honest mistake for a fourteen-year-old girl to make. Never thought instructions on its directional flow would be important, did you?”
She stops talking.
My heart continues to pound.
Her meaning crystal clear.
“I guess it all worked out, since he thought you meant to stitch the number eight into the liner. You were always the one that cheered him on the loudest. I still remember the day you begged your daddy to take us to the rodeo over in Clareview. I almost thought you would jump down the bleachers when he didn’t get bucked off. Of course, we joked that it was his new hat with the lucky eight that made that ride possible.”
My throat burns.
My eyes water.
Her words a hushed reminder of a stupid girl’s dreams.
“When I saw him five years ago out in California, we went out for drinks at a bar near the arena,” Quinn continues, a little softer now. “Rowdy as all get out, it was. Some drunk cowboy itchin’ for a fight knocked Mav’s hat off and the first thing he did was jump up from his stool and grab his hat off the dirty ground. You should have seen the care he took in making sure it wasn’t damaged. He placed it—opening up, mind you—on the table before laying the jerk out with one punch to the jaw. I saw the same faded stitching before he placed the hat back on his head. I would have known those jagged stitches anywhere. The same ones made by the solid red thread you rode your bike almost twenty miles outside of Pine Oak to get at the neighboring town’s Walmart. The same ones that you spent three days perfecting inside the hat you spent two whole years’ worth of allowance on. The same ones that you spent another two days cryin’ over when you realized you put that infinity on there vertically and it just looked like a crooked eight. All of that inside the same hat he’s worn since the day you gave it to him, Leighton.”
My chest hurts.
My throat hurts.
The pain from my sobbing burning through them both.
Quinn doesn’t speak until I can get myself under control, her hand reaching over from her seat and holding mine the whole time. It isn’t until I had just lifted my shirt up to wipe my eyes that she says another word.
“Go look in the hat, Leighton. Don’t argue with me. You go on and do it while you feel like you do right now. It’s important that you do this now, while I’m here.”
I look over, my eyes fuzzy with tears, and nod my head. Finally, one of the emotions I felt warring inside of me since he left the PieHole earlier comes to the forefront: sadness. The last thing I want to do is go look at that stupid crooked number, but she’s right—it’s better that I do it while she is here because once I see those stupid red lines, it’s going to remind me of every painful memory I’ve worked so hard to forget.
“I’m right here, Leighton,” she reminds me softly.
I stand from the rocking chair, my body stiff from too many hours in one position, and walk over to the hat. I hear her move, the sound of my screen door creaking as she opens it.
The second the porch lights turn on, the one directly above the table Maverick’s hat is resting on acts like a spotlight inside of the opening. It wasn’t the faded red stitching that she promised would be there that catches my attention, though. It couldn’t be ignored, but it also didn’t bring the pain I thought it would.
No, it wasn’t the crooked stitching of that faded failed attempt at a romantic declaration that broke me into a million pieces. Had it been that alone, I wouldn’t feel like someone had just punched me in the gut.